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Tests
Tests & Skills Tests Characteristics are usually subdivided into 4 Skills, which are specific actions that characteristic relates to, so for example, the Strike and Break skills both use the Strength characteristic as a base, but a character may be specialized in one or the other depending on their background, traits, etc. If there is a particular action a character wishes to attempt but there is no skill related to it, the GM may judge another skill is close enough to it to use, or instead use a characteristic or even a combination of several skills or characteristics. At any point, a character may attempt to use a skill to obtain information, affect other characters or change things around them. In order to determine how successful the player is at using their skill, the GM uses a Test. Elements of a Test A test occurs whenever a player rolls dice to determine whether they succeed or fail at something they are attempting to do. Tests have several elements to them, though not all elements will feature in all tests. * Difficulty refers to how challenging the task or action the character wants to achieve is , how many successes are necessary and is usually determined either by the GM or by another character’s skill. It is important to note that no matter how easy something may be, characters will always need at least 1 success to achieve it. Its recommended that Game Masters consider allowing partial degrees of success to their players, meaning that even if a player has no possible way to obtain, for example, 5 successes, they may get some sort of reward from obtaining two or three even if the test itself is failed. When difficulty is determined by the GM, they may assign it according to the following table; * Character skill at a certain task is represented by the amount of dice a character gets to roll and is determined by adding together the amount of dice granted by Skill and its corresponding Characteristic. When rolling dice, each result of 5 and above is considered a success. Furthermore, if a character rolls several results of 6, then that is considered a critical success, and more successes are added for each six past the first. So two results of six would be 3 successes, three results of six would be 5, and so on. * Modifiers are extra Bonus and Penalty dice which may be applied to a test depending on the situation, character training and GM choice. Each Bonus die adds a die to the test roll, each Penalty die subtracts one. No matter the skill of a character and the bonuses granted or penalties they may have, a character will always roll an absolute minimum of 2 dice and a maximum of 12. Types of Tests Skill Test A skill test is the most basic and common type of test, where a player simply rolls an amount of D6 determined by their character’s characteristics and skill and attempts to obtain enough successes to beat a Difficulty set by the GM. Challenge Test The second most common type of test is the Challenge Test. In this kind of test the Difficulty is determined by another character’s Passive skill. In order to calculate a character’s Passive skill, simply follow this formula. Challenge tests tend to be used in combat, where the passive skill of NPCs and enemies is used as the test difficulty. Unlike active skills, when using Passive skills the character does not add the dice granted by attributes to their total, a character’s Passive skill can never increase over 6 and can never be less than 1. Passive Skill To calculate a character's Passive skill, add 2 + Dice from Skills (but not Characteristics) + any modifiers. Opposed Test The last type of test is the Opposed Test. An Opposed test takes place when two characters are in direct competition. In an opposed test, each player uses however many dice correspond to their character’s skill and the player with the most successes wins. In the case of a tie, the character with the higher skill wins. If there is still a tie, the character with the higher score in the characteristic tied to the skill wins. Other Concepts Taking your Time & Offering Support Sometimes characters might want to look for ways to get an edge in some tests when they are not under pressure. Two ways to do this is by Taking your Time with the test, or having a fellow character offer Support. In both cases, doing so means receiving a Bonus die. When Taking your Time, the character slowly and methodically attempts to resolve the challenge in front of them, truly concentrating on the problem. Not all tests or situations will allow a character to Take their Time and the GM will determine if its possible for a character to do. For example; a character may not be able to take their time repairing a mech in the middle of a firefight, but they could do it if they are somewhere safe and quiet for a couple of hours and it is something they’ve done many times before. On the other hand, Offering Support is something another character can do to support an ally who is taking a test. The GM determines if its possible for the second character to support their ally for that specific test, usually characters cannot offer support on skills they have no points in (0 or less) or skills that require proficiency which the character does not have (mechacraft, datacraft, healing, piloting, etc) Proficiency Some Tests will require characters to be proficient or trained at that which they are attempting through the use of a training option. A character performing a test on something that requires proficiency without having it will have two penalty dice. Skill Challenge Sometimes the characters may run into a situation which would require many skill tests over a long period of time or would play out in an abstract way that would be difficult to represent in-game. In those situations, the GM may declare a skill challenge. Skill Challenges are meant to represent a variety of tests which, when put one after the other, represent the situation the characters are. The difficulty of the skill challenge is set by the GM and they tend to involve 5 tests (however, the GM may determine more or less tests are necessary). It is usually not worth it having Trivial skill challenges, as most teams will be able to breeze through them. For each test, the GM will describe the situation and one of the party members may use one of their skills to try and resolve it. The party may use any skill as long as they are able to satisfactory explain to the GM how their character would use the skill to navigate the test. Once a character has attempted one of the tests in the Skill Challenge, whether the character was successful or not, that character may not attempt another test until all other characters have attempted a test as well. If the test is successful, the group moves on to the next test. If the test is failed then the group still moves onto the next test but the character who attempted it usually receives some sort of penalty, these can be anything from losing money or gear to taking injuries or wounds! If the group accumulates three failures, they have failed in whatever task they were attempting through the skill challenge. Skills Skills are the main way a character interacts with the world around them and they are an echo of their characteristics. Basically, the better the characteristic in question, the better the character will be at the skills related to it. A character with high strength will be more skilled at throwing or pushing objects around than one with low strength. Skills, however, can also advance independently from characteristics through traits, backgrounds or training. Strength Skills Endurance Skills Dexterity Skills Intelligence Skills Insight Skills Charisma Back Home ''